Car News In the Rearview: It’s SUV Season

Welcome back to In the Rearview, your weekly roundup of some of the top car news of the past week that I have caught, prepared, and served with a nice sauce for you here. This weekly banquet has a decidedly apparent theme this time, as the continuation of Auto Show season has brought a slew of new production and concept SUVs to the limelight.

First course this week is the new Genesis GV80, a new concept SUV from the new luxury brand. Apart from the interesting styling and camera-stalk side mirrors, the GV80 also has the odd distinction of being a fuel-cell vehicle, something that Genesis’ parent company Hyundai has been working on for a while.

Anyway, the final course this week gets a bit complicated, but it’s something has been served up by news sites near-constantly of late, because it’s about Donald Trump and the EPA. Yes, again. It seems that a new budget document circulating proposes that the government would slash funding to the EPA’s vehicle testing division by $48 million dollars–that’s 99% of all of their funding. To offset this, the document proposes that the government lay off about half of the staff in vehicle testing and make automakers pay more for certification. It seems to me that this is a way to attack regulations that the current administration opposes without having to touch the regulations themselves, but also seems to me to be the administration shooting itself in the foot by eliminating its own policing power.

Daniel Susco is a native of the Dayton-Cincinnati area, and has written on a multitude of subjects. He can discuss Shakespeare, expound on Classical Mythology, and even make witty jokes about Pliny the Elder (More like “Pliny the Rounder,” right?). In his free time, Daniel enjoys reading, cooking, woodworking, and long walks on the beach (just kidding – sunburn is no joke). See more articles by Daniel.